The ever-smiling (for good reason) Rayo family celebrates its fourth Hays High School graduation, the final ceremony honoring Adam Rayo and more than 400 of his friends. The Rayo family, including (left to right) sisters Eva and Diana, 2011 HHS graduate Adam, mom Nancy, and brother Nick, represent an awe-inspiring story of dedication in the face of adversity. (Photo by Jim Cullen)
by JIM CULLEN
When it comes to academic excellence, just-graduated Hays High School senior Adam Rayo knows the territory – and has a family tradition to back it up. Adam just received the Gates Millennium Scholarship, an award that carries a dollar value of up to $20,000 a year – for four years. He will put it to good use, having been accepted to the University of Texas McCombs School of Business, majoring in accounting.
Make no mistake about it, this story starts and ends with Adam’s noteworthy accomplishment. He was, in fact, among the top 10 percent of the Rebel graduating class and stood as the top Hispanic student of the Class of 2011. His enthusiasm for a challenge led the standout math student to take every advanced math class offered at Hays High School, having taken a summer Algebra 2 class so he could take the final Calculus BC course this year.
Adam was an active member of the Rebel Math Club and, not to be confused with someone concerned only with his own pursuits, volunteered with other club members twice a month at the Texan Nursing and Rehab facility in San Marcos. There he spent time with elderly residents, playing games with them to brighten their days. He also spent time as a member of the school’s UIL Accounting Team.
He’s obviously a pretty incredible guy – one who’s been appropriately awarded a national-level scholarship to take him through his higher education goals. But Adam’s story has another amazing level, one that goes back to the family tradition mentioned earlier. The lightning of perfectly-struck achievement has happened not once, nor twice, but – incredibly – three times before in the Rayo family, Adam’s older brother Nick and sisters Eva and Diana having walked very similar paths in recent years. Eva, in fact, was a Hays High Class of 2006 graduate and also a Gates Millennium Scholarship winner. She just graduated from the University of Texas in Austin and is headed for graduate school at UT-Pan American.
Nick (HHS Class of 2005) and Diana (HHS Class of 2009), too, have enjoyed academic success. Nick received his degree from the University of Texas School of Business and works as a hospital auditor for the state. Diana is currently pursuing her degree at Texas State University.
The words “amazing” and “incredible” have already been used to describe the talented, hard-working Rayo siblings, the above only the tip of four very large icebergs of achievement. But give these four stellar brothers and sisters the chance and it will be their mother, Nancy Rayo, to whom they give the credit.
Nancy Rayo, who just completed her first year working for the Elm Grove Elementary School Day Care facility (10 previous years having been served at the Buda Methodist Church Day Care), is a single working mom. She has been for 12 years. Looking back is hard for Nancy Rayo, as she recalls the time when, pulled from the comfort of a formerly middle-class existence, she faced the prospect of raising her four children alone – and without the accustomed benefit of the support of a solid bread-winner.
To the naïve question of whether it was “hard at times,” she answers, “Oh, yeah. I actually first started working for $5 an hour, part-time, as a lunch monitor at Tom Green Elementary.” When she sought church and public assistance, she found herself up against the Catch 22 nature of appearing to have too many resources to qualify for it.
Somehow, some way, Nancy Rayo found the fortitude within herself to make it work for her four young children, setting a strict standard of what was academically acceptable. That standard, no doubt, set the siblings on their pathway to excellence. But crediting herself is not her way. Where Nancy Rayo finds the most responsibility for her children’s long record of achievement is the ranks of Hays CISD’s teachers.
“They don’t get paid enough,” she says with a knowing laugh. “Awesome” is how she describes her feelings about many faculty members across the district. She begins an assessment, “Without the teachers…” and her voice trails off, shaking her head.
Perhaps highest among those teachers has been Hays High School math teacher Scott Spiller, an acknowledged campus leader and deserved student favorite for years. Spiller first took Nick Rayo under his wing, extending his high school calculus-begun relationship to help with Nick’s work at the University of Texas. Spiller speaks fondly of Eva and Diana, as he does the Rayo boys. His affirmation of that solid relationship is clearly confirmed when he says his wife Kandy and he look forward to keeping in touch with the Rayos. “They are like family and we look forward to helping spoil their children one day as Aunt Kandy and Uncle Scott,” he admits.
There you have it. Adam Rayo wins the Gates Millennium Scholarship. It’s big. Adam knows college will be difficult, but his brothers and sisters have been here before and he says he’s “ready for the challenge.” It’s about Adam this year, but this just-graduated Hays High Rebel standout has a deep tradition of Rayo family excellence he’s carrying with him into his promising future.
